Aging
population is substantively increased over last decade and they have specific
clothing needs especially for the elderly with disabilities. Their clothing needs
to cover functional and aesthetic requirements in order to improve their
quality of life. Adaptive clothing is specially designed for the elderly and
the disabled. However, there is no public policy to support such the elderly with disabilities
in their clothing needs. In this paper, we aim to study the adaptive clothing
and its significance, the problems encountered by the elderly with disabilities
in adaptive clothing, analysis of public policy in Hong Kong for the elderly
with disabilities in adaptive clothing over last decade, and implications and
future directions for adaptive clothing in Hong Kong. In our findings, the demand
of adaptive clothing in Hong Kong was substantially increased over last decade
and the predicted demand will be twice of current demand after 50 years. However,
the Government policy in Hong Kong has not yet fully supported their clothing
needs, and the non-profit clothing services centre is set up to provide
tailoring services to meet their needs. As the capacity of the centre is very
limited, it is necessary to expand its capacity through assistive technology
and to encourage non-government organizations (NGOs) to establish more social
enterprises with Government’s support. Such findings would be beneficial to the
Government for strengthening such services
for the elderly and the disabled as well as public awareness.
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